Help with IDing cause of cherry shrimp death

[jlothethird]

Hi, I'm pretty new to Cherry shrimp and had a bunch die at first, probably from too aggressive of water changes, and then haven't had any deaths for a few weeks until today. At first I thought it was white ring of death/failed molt, but then I saw a white spot on the side of its head and I'm not so sure. Could this be a sign of infection or parasites?

KH 3

GH 5 or 6

Ph 6.8

Ammonia/nitrites and nitrates are all 0 (planted tank with only a few shrimp in it, so the plants are keeping up with the nitrates).

Any help would be great, I'm starting to get a bit discouraged

I should add I feed five to six times a week alternating between crab cuisine and shrimp cuisine only as much as they'll eat that day

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

This white spot between the eyes could be scutariella japonica. I’ve personally dealt with it in my shrimp colony. 

What it is, is a type of flatworm. Break out the magnifying glass or, I used an app called Magnifier on my iPhone and inspect your other shrimp. See if they have similar issues between the eyes, look closely and you will see these things wiggle around. It is very common in Neocaridina shrimp. Left untreated, they work their way into the gills and can kill the shrimp.
 

There are multiple methods to treat it. I tried 3. The first was salt dips. Not only was this tedious to do every time I saw an affected shrimp, but it was stressful for me and highly stressful for the shrimp (they’d roll over on their side and just lay there after a few second in the dip. For me it caused such panic, and I hated it!). Additionally, I felt it was a bandaid fix because I don’t think it did anything about the Scutariella Japonica eggs.

PraziPro was my second treatment attempt which was unsuccessful. It was a several week long treatment and I had to remove every molt that I saw during that time. After all was finished, the shrimps still had living worms on their heads.

The third, and SUCCESSFUL method was by using No Planaria, and that took care of it, but you do have to remove any molts you see, because the worm eggs are attached inside the molt. If you don’t get rid of them, you’re back to square one. No Planaria will kill any snails you have for sure, because a snail’s body is soft and too similar to the worm body that you’re trying to target. Remove your snail friends, and do not return them for several weeks and after multiple water changes and siphoning the tank. This product lingers and folks have reported snail deaths after returning their snails. I eventually returned my snails but waited a long time. Maybe a month or so.

I used the instructions below, and I even emailed this person and he responded several times.  He’s a YouTuber “Mark’s Shrimp Tanks” and a very kind man, and he sure does know his stuff about shrimp.

Click for instructions

*Before taking any action, take the time to observe and properly diagnose your shrimp. There are other illnesses that affect shrimp, and I don’t want to send you down the wrong path. Get that magnifying glass out!

@nabokovfan87 used another method to treat, and I will tag him so he has the opportunity to share information. That way you have more than 1 strategy to consider. His treatment also would require snail removal prior.

Edited July 20 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/17/2024 at 10:53 AM, jlothethird said:

Hi, I'm pretty new to Cherry shrimp and had a bunch die at first, probably from too aggressive of water changes, and then haven't had any deaths for a few weeks until today. At first I thought it was white ring of death/failed molt, but then I saw a white spot on the side of its head and I'm not so sure. Could this be a sign of infection or parasites?

Hello! Welcome to the forums.

Something to keep in mind is that shrimp are very, very cyclical.  An issue on day 0 might not fully cause an issue until day 28-30.  They take ~28 days to molt.  I don't feel "safe" until they go through 2 or 3 good molts under new surroundings.

Moss helps a ton as well as other sort of plants that they can graze on.  You feed a fine powder food, the moss catches it (same way that bamboo shrimp do) and then that gives the shrimp things to graze off of.  The main thing with any sort of molting issues is to focus on food and you water parameters.  Depending what type of food you have, I would recommend grabbing something like shrimp king calcium based foods or some other mineral based foods you can mix into your regiment.  This is good for once a week feedings and it's dramatically helped my shrimp with their issues.  Some people use mineral balls, eggshells, there are all kinds of methods out there.

Beyond that... Water parameters.

 

On 7/17/2024 at 10:53 AM, jlothethird said:

KH 3

GH 5 or 6

Ph 6.8

Your KH is exactly where mine is. (4+ is a bit more stable, which puts your PH in the 6.8-7.0 range, but stable)
You GH is a little low.  I would like to see it 8+.  In the wild in taiwan you're talking a GH in the 12-13 range.

Something like GH+ shrimp salts or just a product like seachem equilibrium is recommended to get those parameters up. 

The next step we would want to focus on is testing you tap water for GH and potentially having to add in GH until you get the tank stable at a slightly more tolerable GH level.  Feeding calcium is an absolute must with this GH level and you would want to ensure GH doesn't drop out on you due to the plants using up the minerals.

As @Chick-In-Of-TheSea we would always want to check for parasites and that absolutely could be in play here.  It's tough to see any sort of detail from the photos, but grab a magnifying glass and spend some time with your shrimp.  It's one of my favorite things to do is to just watch them go bonkers in the tank.  See what you see and let us know!
 

[jlothethird]

Thanks for the replies! I've been looking really closely, and I don't think it's parasites, although the white spot I circled might be rust? I'm leaning towards no, but unsure. Since posting I tested my tap water for copper and found a very low, but noticeable amount of copper (less than .25 ppm, but noticeable). I've been instead getting RO water and remineralizing with salty shrimp GH/KH, and there is no longer a detectable level in my tank.

I was planning on slowly raising the GH to about 10 and KH to 4/5 by doing small weekly water changes, each raising GH by 1 point a week. Does that sound like a good plan if I wanted to adjust my parameters?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Most dechlorinators remove metals. Check the label on yours before changing anything?

[jlothethird]

I was using prime which should detoxify copper, so maybe that wasn't the problem. I had actually decided to use RO + remineralizer before I realized there was copper, but a while after getting the shrimp, since my tap water is GH 2/KH 2 (which I naively thought would be fine, and highly regret). I find it likely that you're right about problems on day 0 causing deaths down the road. I had a lot of deaths, and then thought it was getting better once my water was more stable at GH 5/6, so thought I had fixed it until this death (and one or two more since then 😞, I now have two or three left). I'll gradually get the gh and kh a tad higher and stable and try again with one more batch of shrimp, I think.

Does that sound like a reasonable conclusion/plan? (I won't be offended if you tell me I'm wrong being dumb, I'm here to learn!)

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/23/2024 at 9:54 AM, jlothethird said:

Since posting I tested my tap water for copper and found a very low, but noticeable amount of copper (less than .25 ppm, but noticeable). I've been instead getting RO water and remineralizing with salty shrimp GH/KH, and there is no longer a detectable level in my tank.

Look up "HMA filter" and go from there. It's a step between RO and tap water that is basically what a lot of common filters in appliances use.

Zero water is another good one.

Seachem sells copper absorbing resins as well.

On 7/23/2024 at 12:06 PM, jlothethird said:

Does that sound like a reasonable conclusion/plan? (I won't be offended if you tell me I'm wrong being dumb, I'm here to learn!)

It does! Don't be so hard on yourself, we're all hear to experience, learn, and mentor from one another. 🙂 

The RO should remove any issues with copper. RO should be pure water.

On 7/23/2024 at 12:06 PM, jlothethird said:

I'll gradually get the gh and kh a tad higher and stable and try again with one more batch of shrimp, I think.

Yep, the main thing is to just gradually adjust things over months as opposed to a quick jump.  KH you can adjust a little bit more frequently and the missing or low GH you can sort of resolve with mineral balls, mineral based foods, seiryu stone, etc.